The lawsuit from three investors was filed yesterday as shares in Rupert Murdoch's media conglomerate fell almost 7pc in New York with the deepening crisis reverberating across Wall Street.

"The damage to the company and to its shareholders is going to be extensive," said Jay Eisenhofer, the lawyer who filed the suit for the investors.

The losses facing News Corp investors increased the pressure on Mr Murdoch to contain what had escalated into the company's worst crisis since it faced the threat of bankruptcy in the early 1990s.

The phone hackingscandal also posed a threat to the widespread expectation that James Murdoch, who ran News Corp's international business, would eventually succeed his father in the top job.

Any possibility that News Corp paid money to the police in Britain could prompt the US authorities to investigate the company under anti–bribery rules and lead to calls from shareholders that the next chief executive came from outside the Murdoch family.

Filed in the state of Delaware by Amalgamated Bank, the Central Laborers Pension Fund and the New Orleans Employees Retirement System, the suit accused News Corp's senior executives and board of failing to tackle the phone hacking sooner.

"These revelations should not have taken years to uncover and stop," the suit claims. "These revelations show a culture run amok within News Corp and a board that provides no effective review or oversight."

The Delaware lawsuit also alleged that the failure of News Corp's board to investigate thoroughly the phone hacking at the News of the World showed that the Murdoch family wielded too much control over the company. "Throughout his tenure, Murdoch has treated News Corp like a family candy jar, which he raids whenever his appetite strikes," the lawsuit says.

Shares in News Corp, which owns Fox News, the cable television channel, and The Wall Street Journal in the US, were also hit by fears that its attempt to take control of BSkyB would be blocked by the authorities in Britain.

Wall Street analysts had long believed that buying the 61pc of BSkyB it did not already own was a good way for News Corp to spend its $12billion cash pile.

The legal action filed yesterday was an updated version of a suit first filed in March, which accused News Corp of "rampant nepotism" for paying £415million for Shine, a television production company founded by Rupert Murdoch's daughter, Elisabeth.